In Florida last month, I always carried my camera, and often stopped along the bike paths to take pictures. Above, the blue water of a calm lagoon reflects the beginning of the evening sky. I myself, am so often in a hurry, and it is still hard to slow down and take a look at things. The same thing goes when we look at people, noticing things we did not notice before, good or bad.

I am always amazed at poetry, how poets write poems in a weird non-human voice, how the poems "chatter ideas," and how they want in some desperation to be published, as if being published proves something. Of course being published proves something, but the intent seems to be published now, today, currently, poems that offer nothing of interest to living life, but packed full of "half-thoughts," tid-bits of incomplete angst like stepping barefoot on a wide slice of onion on a cold tile floor. Icky.

Here are the rules for modern poetry:

Don't say anything.

Avoid a story.

Stay clear of wisdom.

Do not be clear.

Politics is acceptable.

Political correctness is demanded.

Contort the language.

Prose is poetry.

Personal angst is art.

Trauma, negativity, gloom required.

Incomplete, obtuse vague inferences are 'arty.'

The 'subject' is sacrosanct. Any subject is good, even if meaningless.

Religious poetry is always perfect.

Poems in tongue, in code, mysterious, popular.

Private poetry vs public poetry -- unknown concept.

Far-fetched references mean sophistication, however phony.

Anger, resentment, bitterness, yelling, are theraputic, and dull.

Never "offer" anything in a poem. If you do, just who do you think you are, some phylosopher? Everyone is on the same "level," everyone is equal, and never criticize anyone or their work, because whatever any writer produces is "art."

There are many other rules for modern poetry, yet there are one or two who rise above these rules.

The picture above, ugly to some, beautiful to some.

One of the most frequent thoughts I think is how few people will make a real difference in your life. I can rewind my life, go back to crossroads, events with people that made great difference for my life from then on, and there are only a few important ones. Where would I be if that one person did not make the decision they made? There are many different levels of events, but the important ones are very important and very few, at least for me. I remember her decision; she meant, "no, I am not living my life with you." But my love for her has never left and still lights and shadows my every living day.

How much of every life is a delusion? Which of us deludes our self into living what we know is false? Everyone does this to some degree, I imagine. We live all day inside a huge bubble of importance above our heads, when there is no real bubble. Wake up and get real, there isn't much time.

Redemption is a great theme for any art and any life, however many tragedies occur on the way.

All of life looks like a vacation if you are dead. Just returned from a nice vacation in Rockport, TX, a small gulf town, a small working waterfront, shrimpers and oysters, and fairly quiet. The view above is morning, and is for me the ideal place to wake up and start a day.

Ah, summer time, and the living is easy. Lounging around the pool, trying to find my lost swim goggles, avoiding the bugs which the pool company doesn't bother to clean, nothing is better.

How many summers? Count, not the years, but the summers you have left. But not now. 102 degrees, clear sky, roasted salted almonds, oranges, cool icy drinks, and then to go swimming later, under the stars of Texas, ah, nothing is better.

Hope your day is going well, too.

Acceptance of chance is an under-appreciated wisdom. Many of us can't remember where we put something down a short time ago. Most of us are bumping through jumbled days and weeks, but somehow things get done, things happen, and life goes on.

Sometimes, as often has been noted, the most interesting things are simply found, chance events and so forth. A kind word from a stranger, a plastic bag by the window.

Some see these things and some don't, and who knows what really matters? Some will see such things as "pictures of nothing" and much prefer pictures of waves smashing into light houses or jets flying through clouds, which are things also of interest, to be sure.

Either way, it is the process and the discovery that makes the day go along.

We tend to forget that we live in a paper-thin atmosphere, and could climb a ladder into space in an afternoon, if one existed. (Well, maybe if one could climb quickly.)

How are your New Year Resolutions? One of mine is to try to stop trying to do too many different things. Time is limited, except for the moon, which scientists say is getting further and further away from earth, and one will day will sail off. Illogical.

How does one tell if a picture is a setting or rising sun? It is easy. If you are really happy, it rising.

The fishing boat with the reflected sunlight is about a mile from this statue.

Where does the willingness to take huge extra steps that most will never attempt come from? Or, is it, why are some unblocked?

Very little of good poetry is mere juxtaposition. Good poetry has forward motion, action and image, not dead irony. Irony is dead, cheap. And voice.

Poetry involves others to make it work. Let the reader step forward.

A rainbow.

You've seen this sign somewhere. Something there as the car goes by in a hurry. The will to stop, to change the momentum of the situation, the travel, the destination, the goal, is often fleeting. The sign is still there, the restaurant is closed. Everything in passing.

Have you ever seen light transverse an eye through the pupil and behind the iris and illuminate the white of the eye from within? Sure you have.

What did you think? What did you feel? Did you mention it?

Or are you asleep?

THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE;

There who people who tell the truth, and those who lie. These two people don't mix very well.

There are people who will seek psychiatric help and those who never will. Never the twain shall meet.

There are people who do not have the capacity to be empathic. This is a brain thing, and affects more people than we imagine.

There are people who have absolutely no self-perception. They have no idea who they are, what they want to do, or how others perceive them.

Some listen, others don't. Etc, on and on.

I think it helps to think in simple terms, although there are many more complexities than there is time.

I learned all this from Shakespeare, in the lines;

Listen more than you speak.

Everything is right before us. Live correctly, and things appear before you.

Another of the great mysteries of life is how people will live their lives and ignore the work of this century on psychology. I use the word psychology in a light manner. In other words, if your car breaks down, you call a mechanic; if your mind breaks down in some irrational manner, you call a shrink -- but most people don' t call a shrink or seek help. They think they have the absolute right to live their life their way -- and they do -- but why ignore science? There are patterns, there are needs to look under the hood, or under the body of the car with mirrors to check things out, to look for bombs if nothing else, if not the engineering skills of the mechanic.

One only moves forward with knowledge. Knowledge, not passion. Passion will fall by the wayside, knowledge guides.